ON SOCCER:THAT OLD chestnut about poachers turned gamekeepers could pretty much have been thought up for the pair driving things at Bohemians these days.

They first gained some prominence at the club as critics of the committee old guard but last night it was Gerry Cuffe and Gerry Conway who were on the podium at the AGM having to account for their stewardship during what have certainly been eventful times.

Sunday's win over Drogheda probably lightened the mood a little amongst supporters but it was never going to be an entirely smooth ride for the men with their hands on the steering wheel. They know better than most that supporters can be difficult people to please even in the best of times. And with the multi-million euro deal to relocate the club from Phibsborough to Harristown stalled by one ongoing legal action over ownership of a tiny portion of the Dalymount Stadium site and events closer to the playing side of the club under scrutiny due to another case - taken by Sean Connor for unfair dismissal - times could probably be just a little better right now.

Within the committee there is confidence the current problems will be overcome without too much more delay. Over the next couple of months, they insist, the grand plans for a bright new future, unveiled more than 18 months ago when the sale of Dalymount to Liam Carroll was agreed, will be dusted off and the real work on building for the future will begin.

Amongst the fans there is a little scepticism about how things are going with another record loss - €1.2 million before exceptional items - being seen as further evidence that the finances are already a little out of control. The deal secured for the sale of Dalymount was, it is generally conceded, a pretty good one but there is concern at the scale of the ongoing losses and that such a large-scale project is effectively being overseen by part-timers.

At a club where the members - there are some 550 of them - call the shots, it's natural enough stuff as is the fact that, when belts were tightened for a while and the wage bill cut under Gareth Farrelly, the same people were generally unhappy with the quality of the team's performances.

A couple of years on, spending on the squad is reckoned to have almost doubled but there are clear signs of improvement. People on both sides of the divide at last night's meeting insist their aspirations for the season are broadly the same with qualification for the Uefa and Setanta cups spoken of as reasonable objectives at this stage in the team's development.

Some of Pat Fenlon's close-season signings have already started to make a significant impact while better would be expected of others during the coming months. But it is clear the squad has been much improved by the addition of players like Ken Oman, Killian Brennan and Jason Byrne.

Fenlon, though, is said to have reservations about some of the squad he inherited and the Dubliner is likely to look for more money in the summer window in order to add to his options in key areas.

When he succeeded Connor there was, for instance, a sense that he was disproportionately well served in central midfield but a few months on, with Kevin Hunt injured and Chris Turner in search of his best form, this may be one of the areas he targets for recruitment.

A loan deal with Wolves for former England youth international Mark Davies has been floated as a possibility while others to have been connected with a switch to Dalymount include Lewis Gobern (another one that Mick McCarthy is looking to coax back from long-term injury with a spell in a summer league) and Brendan McGill, the former Irish under-21 international currently at Gretna.

Another striker mightn't go amiss either if Darren Mansaram fails to rediscover the form he showed last year when his physical strength proved one of the team's key assets. Though there were few star performances against St Patrick's Athletic a few weeks back, the Englishman, whose standout display for the club was probably against the same opponents in Richmond Park last year, was particularly anonymous. Like one or two others, one suspects, he is already playing for his future under the new manager.

Fenlon, of course, was hired to deliver the league title and, in view of his record at Shelbourne, expectations are pretty high. For the moment, some rivals are spending more but when the legal end of things gets sorted out, Bohemians should certainly match any other domestic club's financial outlay.

Already income from the relocation deal has enabled the club to sustain significant deficits and things should only improve with the club on course to receive around €12 million in advance payments and penalty fees in the event that the move does take another five years to complete or the balance of the purchase price - around €45 million - which, the plan goes, will be invested in order to provide investment income.

On the face of it, the numbers remain very strong indeed, particularly in a declining property market, dwarfing anything achieved by other clubs who have sought to cash in on the value of their ground. That, though, is an old success story and what matters now is how it translates into new ones.

Cuffe and Conway may be club president and honorary secretary these days, but they won't need reminding of that.